


Susan Gets Hurt

by wheel_pen



Series: Agent and Doctor [15]
Category: The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 22:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3306338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being injured in an accident at the Center, Susan disappears from the security grid—hiding somewhere instead of seeking help. Jeremy, as her friend, goes in search of her, and brings Rachel to tend to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Susan Gets Hurt

Rachel’s cell phone buzzed as she was catching up with some back issues of her medical journals and she saw that the call was from the Director’s office. She hoped she wasn’t in trouble for anything. “Hello?”

“ _Dr. Ward_.” It was Director Quarles’s voice. “ _Have_ _you seen or heard from Jeremy lately?_ ”

Well, _that_ wasn’t a good start. “I saw him for his regular appointment this morning,” Rachel reported. “He was fine. What’s wrong?”

“ _Well, about half an hour ago there was an accident on the archery range_ ,” Quarles began, and Rachel tensed. “ _We think Susan Bates was injured, but she ran off and left behind her locator beacon, so we can’t find her_.” Rachel relaxed a little, slightly guilty at being relieved Jeremy wasn’t hurt when someone else _was_. “ _About ten minutes ago Jeremy’s beacon was turned off as well. It’s not really good when agents start disappearing from the grid_ ,” he finished dryly.

Rachel could understand that. “I don’t know why Jeremy would turn off his beacon,” she admitted, “but if Susan was hurt, and hiding somewhere, Jeremy would probably want to look for her. They’re friends.”

“ _That’s our theory as well_ ,” Quarles agreed. “ _Before he disappeared Green was ranging all over the Center, places he doesn’t often go_.”

“They like the ceiling ducts,” Rachel reminded him, not feeling very useful.

“ _I know, and there’s no sensors up there_ ,” Quarles conceded. The logistical difficulties alone prevented their installation, and he suspected the agents would just find a different place to hide anyway. “ _With their beacons off they could be anywhere up there_.” Normally of course they were trained to keep the locator beacons on at all times, including in the field; but the ability to turn them off was occasionally vital to avoiding enemy surveillance. It was a calculated risk that generally paid off. Generally. “ _Well, keep an eye out, and let us know if you see either one_.”

“Yes, sir.” And after that, Rachel really couldn’t concentrate on her medical journals, thinking about Jeremy and Susan crawling around the ceiling ducts—that seemed the most likely explanation for where they were, as there were few locations on the Center’s campus that were not covered by cameras of some kind. The agents tended to be very instinctive, especially at the Center where it was less desirable for them to display fully rational problem-solving skills, and it wouldn’t surprise her if Susan, upon being injured, had decided curling up in a secret location where she felt safe was the best course of action. The agents on the whole did _not_ tend to seek out first aid very quickly, relying instead on their innate ability to heal; Rachel had lectured Jeremy several times about this, when he came in with day-old injuries from training, injuries she only knew about because he liked seeing her every day.

Rachel tried to go back to work, but every creak or thump in her ceiling made her glance up, wondering if they were up there. She had just settled back into her routine when, naturally, the noises above her increased, a ceiling panel moved away, and Jeremy peered down at her.

“Jeremy!”

“Hello, Dr. Ward.” He dropped down into her office gracefully. “I need you to come with me. Susan’s been hurt.”

Rachel was on her feet and rounding the desk instantly. “What happened to you?” she wanted to know, examining the red mark on his cheek.

“Susan kicked me,” he admitted. “But she’s really hurt and she didn’t understand I was trying to help. I need you to come with me.”

“Well, of course,” Rachel agreed, already gathering up some first aid supplies. “Where is she? I’ll call it in. They’ve been looking for her—“

“You can’t tell anyone where she is,” Jeremy countered firmly. He reached out and switched off her locator beacon, which was clipped to her waistband.

“Jeremy, if she’s badly injured, we’ll probably need more help,” Rachel tried to point out reasonably. He reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, then switched it off; so she guessed he didn’t agree.

“She wouldn’t want anyone to know where she likes to go,” he judged, which must have been why he turned off his own beacon when looking for her.

Rachel made a quick decision. “Okay. I’ll come with you,” she told him, which was not really in doubt. “But if she needs more help I’m going to call for it.”

“Okay,” Jeremy conceded.

“Hope you guys got all that,” Rachel added in a louder tone, waving at one of the cameras in the room.

“They can hear you at a normal volume,” Jeremy pointed out. “They’ve probably been watching since your beacon went off.” He gave the camera an unnerving stare.

“Okay,” Rachel prompted him, hooking the medical kit over her shoulder. “Lead the way.”

“We’re going into the ceiling,” Jeremy clarified, which she had expected, with a mix of discomfort and intrigue. He braced himself and formed a stirrup with his hands. “Go ahead.”

“Oh, G-d, this could all end before it begins,” Rachel muttered. Feats of agility such as Jeremy displayed were not really something she was capable of. She put her foot in his hands and gripped his shoulders for balance, and somehow she found herself peering into the dim, dusty interior of the ceiling, scrambling over the edge while Jeremy pushed on her feet. She hoped she’d made it up there with a minimum of awkwardness. And then she didn’t think about it anymore, because she had a patient to help. Somewhere.

Once she’d cleared the hole Jeremy launched himself towards it from the top of her desk, swinging up effortlessly. He replaced the ceiling tile and the light level dropped dramatically, though it wasn’t completely dark.

“Not being able to see could be a problem,” Rachel mentioned. With his more sensitive eyesight he might not have realized that.

“Your eyes will adjust,” Jeremy predicted. “Did you bring a flashlight?”

She had her penlight with her, but it would be difficult to crawl while holding it. “Yes,” she answered anyway.

“We’re going this way,” Jeremy directed, and Rachel maneuvered herself around to face him. “Try to put your weight more on the frame, because the actual ceiling tiles aren’t that strong,” he advised, and Rachel had a sudden vision of crashing through the ceiling into an unsuspecting person’s office. “Also, we shouldn’t talk too much, they might be able to hear us.”

“Okay,” Rachel agreed. “Just don’t go too fast.”

The ceiling ducts were hot and dusty, which was exactly what Rachel would have predicted. They were crowded with pipes and conduits of cable and the occasional blinking control panel, and there seemed to be no solid barrier to secure any area, unlike in the normal building environment. Rachel was all turned around pretty quickly, but she suspected that if they’d been traveling through the halls, they would’ve had to pass at least three security checkpoints. And, if you knew what all these cables actually went to, it seemed like you could really have an advantage over even the powerful security system of the Center. Why on Earth would they let people crawl around in here, then? Rachel found herself increasingly focused on this question, as the heat made her sweat, dust tickled her nose, pipes banged into her, and her eyes did _not_ adjust to the low light, or at least not as much as Jeremy seemed to expect.

He was going slow enough, though, and frequently glanced back at her. And someone was hurt, and if Rachel couldn’t actually do much for her up here—which she suspected she couldn’t—hopefully she could at least convince Jeremy to get more help.

Suddenly Jeremy stopped crawling, and when he did move again it was more on his belly, inching along the narrow path between the pipes and cables. “Jeremy?” she risked whispering.

He signaled her to wait. “Susan,” he hissed. “Susan, it’s Jeremy. I brought Dr. Ward.”

There was a snarl in the darkness; Rachel couldn’t even see where. Jeremy rolled to the side suddenly as something lashed out at him, then he grabbed it and tried to hold it still. Whatever it was didn’t like that.

“Susan, it’s Jeremy!” he repeated. “I want to help you. I brought Dr. Ward.”

Rachel could not imagine that whatever was making those noises could be capable of rational thought. But Jeremy seemed to feel more confident, and he turned down the side path where the thing had kicked at him from. Rachel waited as instructed, even when he disappeared completely.

“Dr. Ward,” he summoned after a moment, and then she followed, turning where he had turned. She was surprised to find that the pipes were further apart here, making a cozy niche which was less stuffy and dark than usual thanks to a nearby air vent that looked out over an unidentified room. Susan was curled up tightly on the floor, her face dirty and streaked with sweat. Rachel approached cautiously.

“It’s Dr. Ward,” Jeremy assured Susan. Her eyes were dark and suspicious and slightly hunted, and Jeremy fluttered around her, smoothing her hair back, sniffing her, stroking her clenched fists. Rachel wouldn’t say he was _unduly_ worried, but he clearly wasn’t sure what else to do.

“Hi, Susan,” Rachel began, sliding closer. Slowly she removed the medical kit from her shoulder and set it on the floor. “Where did you get hurt?”

“Susan. Susan,” Jeremy prompted, pushing on her knee slightly. Finally she uncurled enough that Rachel could see a shirt, maybe Jeremy’s, tied tightly around her midsection, though this hadn’t stopped the blood from seeping out completely.

“Okay, Susan, I’m just going to take a look at this,” Rachel said in a soothing tone. She handed the penlight to Jeremy, who directed it for her while he shielded Susan’s eyes with his other hand. Rachel tried to assess the wound without completely undoing Jeremy’s improvised field dressing, all the while trying to be alert to Susan’s shifting responses as she growled and twitched menacingly. Jeremy tried to reassure her and once even caught a knee jerk that probably would’ve toppled Rachel.

The conclusion was inevitable, though. “We’re going to have to get her down from here,” Rachel finally said. “It looks like a large puncture wound, all the way through—“

“She was shot with an arrow,” Jeremy agreed.

“Yeah, it looks like she pulled it out,” Rachel judged. “That just made things worse.”

“She wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Rachel could understand that. “She needs to get into surgery so they can see what’s been damaged and fix it,” she went on, as Jeremy had not yet reached his tipping point of acting. “I can give her something for the pain, temporarily—“ Susan snarled and Rachel wasn’t sure how to interpret that.

Jeremy was doing a quick calculation. “Okay, give her something,” he decided, and he held Susan’s arm steady while Rachel injected her. She wasn’t exactly struggling in protest, just sort of confused.

That seemed to clear up as the painkiller circulated through her system. She relaxed slightly and her eyes focused, flickering between Jeremy and Rachel. “You’ll be okay now,” Jeremy promised her optimistically. “Dr. Ward saved you.”

Rachel didn’t think now was the appropriate time to correct this statement. Instead she pulled out her cell phone, though she didn’t turn it on yet. “Where are we?” she asked, looking out through the vent. “Oh, the library. Can I call?” Jeremy nodded and she turned the cell phone on; he switched on their locator beacons as well. “Ward, Rachel,” she said after dialing. “Alpha one-one-three. Medical emergency in the library. We need transport and surgery prepped. Arrow through and through the abdomen, heavy blood loss.” She turned back to Jeremy, who had removed one of the nearby ceiling tiles and was scanning the interior of the library. “How are we going to get her down from here?”

Jeremy had a plan. He leaned precariously down through the hole in the ceiling, most of the library residents already staring up at him. “Daniel, Jill,” he summoned, and the two agents walked over without hesitation. “Move a table underneath me.” They did so just as the medical team burst into the library, disrupting the quiet atmosphere. “Climb up on the table and help me get Susan down,” Jeremy instructed. “She’s injured.”

He turned back to the two women in the ceiling. “Move aside please, Dr. Ward,” he suggested cautiously. “Susan, I have to move you now, but the doctors are here. You’ll be okay.” It was an awkward process but he started to move her towards the hole, feet first, and when she seemed to be taking it calmly, Rachel came up behind her to help. The woman gritted her teeth and didn’t make a sound as Jeremy lowered her from the ceiling to be caught by the two agents on the table, who then passed her on to the medical personnel with the gurney.

Rachel leaned out the hole and saw Dr. Kedar attending to Susan. “I gave her five CC’s of mesthenol,” she advised him and he acknowledged this before hurrying off with her to surgery.

Jeremy rolled himself effortlessly out of the ceiling onto the tabletop. The other two agents had already jumped down and gone back to their mission research—this was probably a pretty boring day for them, really. Jeremy looked up at Rachel significantly. “Do you want to come down now, Dr. Ward?” he asked, as though she might legitimately say no.

“Yes,” she assured him. “But how exactly is that going to happen?”

“Just sit on the edge.” Hooking the medkit back over her shoulder Rachel swung her legs over the edge of the hole in the ceiling and Jeremy grabbed them. “Scoot forward.” There was no way this would work, Rachel though, but she did as he said. “Lean forward and put your hands on the opposite edge, and I’ll lift you down.” Following this instruction was slightly terrifying, since she started to slip while doing so, but then Jeremy caught her and lifted her down to the tabletop. Then he jumped to the floor and lifted her down to there.

“Thank you for helping Susan,” he told her sincerely.

“You’re welcome,” Rachel assured him. “Thank you for looking for her, I’m sure she appreciated it. We should get some ice for your cheek before it bruises up too much.”

“Okay.”

They started to walk out of the library, Rachel trying to look as unself-conscious as Jeremy did. “Am I as horribly filthy as you are?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he assured her. The ceiling ducts did not get a regular cleaning and they were both covered in dust and dirt. Rachel imagined the janitorial staff following them all around the Center with brooms, sweeping up their dirty footprints.

“Okay, I’ll go take a shower, _you_ go take a shower, then come back to my office and we’ll see if there’s any news about Susan,” Rachel suggested to him.

“Okay. Thank you, Dr. Ward.”

**

Susan was going to be okay, thanks to Jeremy’s quick intervention; Rachel was sure no one else would’ve found her in that ceiling duct, at least not until it was too late. She suspected Susan would be getting some heavy retraining in self-injury care once she recovered, though—maybe _all_ the agents. In a field situation her actions would have not only gotten her killed but also likely failed whatever mission she was trying to accomplish—understandable though that might seem to Rachel, the agents were held to higher standards.

Jeremy sidled up to Rachel while she was in line in the cafeteria. “I saw Susan today at the hospital,” he informed her.

“Oh? Was she awake?” Rachel asked with interest. “She wasn’t awake yet when I stopped by yesterday.”

“Yes, she’s doing much better,” Jeremy told her. “She wanted to thank you for helping her, and she’s sorry she caused so much trouble.”

“Oh, that’s nice. She shouldn’t be sorry, though,” Rachel countered. “She was injured. Maybe I’ll stop by later today.”

“Rachel,” called another voice, and Dr. Kedar also joined her in line.

“You’re cutting,” Jeremy pointed out.

Rachel shushed him. “Hey, Paul,” she greeted. “We were just talking about Susan. I hear she’s awake now.”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s doing much better,” he agreed. He seemed a little preoccupied about something and finally he turned to face Jeremy directly. “Jeremy, thank you for helping Susan,” he said forthrightly. “I think you must be the only one who knew where she liked to go.” Jeremy’s blank expression did not give him any clues, but Rachel was smiling. “So, thanks,” he repeated awkwardly.

“Okay,” Jeremy replied flatly. Rachel suspected he was being deliberately obtuse because he didn’t like Dr. Kedar that much—the man did not have a very high opinion of the agents he treated, or any agents, thinking of them more as dangerous machines than anything else. He and Rachel had debates about this all the time, and she hoped Jeremy’s actions towards Susan helped to change his mind a little. Then she just had to work on Jeremy’s behavior around him.

“Are you having lunch now, Jeremy?” Rachel prompted, then added to Dr. Kedar, “Would you like to join us?”

The doctor hesitated to commit, but that was okay because Jeremy suddenly became very alert as he looked around the cafeteria. “Excuse me,” he said off-hand, walking away purposefully.

Rachel watched him with concern, stopping whatever else Dr. Kedar was going to say, and then abandoned her lunch selections to follow him at a distance. His posture looked easy to the casual observer, but many in the room were _not_ casual observers and Rachel noticed several of the other agents, and a few staff members, prudently leaving the room. That was not a good sign.

Jeremy slid an empty tray off the end of one table, so smoothly the people sitting there barely noticed. Now he had a weapon. And if Rachel’s guess about his trajectory was correct, he had a target, too. “Jeremy,” she warned behind him.

He ignored her. “Karl!” he barked, and the large blond man turned around, a haughty expression already on his face. Jeremy smashed it with the plastic tray, and then even the casual observers knew something was wrong.

Jeremy’s opening strike did not keep Karl off-guard for long and he swung back. Karl was larger and probably stronger, but Jeremy was faster and more agile. He was angry, though, Rachel could see that, and he attacked when he should have dodged. On the other hand Karl was not exactly following the Center mantra about keeping calm, either.

“Rachel, let’s go, the guards are coming,” Dr. Kedar insisted, trying to pull her away. She was the closest person to the two grappling agents since everyone else had fled.

Guards in this situation seemed perfectly justified and Rachel admitted to feeling slight relief that they were on their way. But she felt she couldn’t just stand back and do nothing, or run from the room. She was not stupid enough to jump in between them when they were actually punching each other; but when Karl flung Jeremy across a table and over the other side, she made her move.

“Stop,” she told Karl firmly, sliding in front of him and pushing on his chest. She might have been trying to tip over a wall. But she didn’t want him to instinctively see her as an antagonist, she wanted him to start _thinking_ again. “Calm down. Back off.”

She heard Jeremy snarling as he climbed back over the table and she turned around, still applying solid force to Karl. “Jeremy, stop. Get down.” She thought him more likely to obey than Karl, though to his credit Karl had not knocked her aside as he easily could. Jeremy paused at least, crouching on the table with a combative expression.

Rachel heard stomping in the hall and became slightly more frantic. “Get off the table. Get down,” she ordered. “You’re done. Get down. Karl! Back off. Down.” Neither wanted to pull away until the other did but slowly, incrementally, they both got down on their knees on the floor. Rachel was not ashamed to admit she was relieved, and had been a little bit worried that this was going to be her last bad idea. “Lie down, all the way,” she insisted, and when the guards burst in brandishing their tranquilizer guns, they found they didn’t have a whole lot left to do. Nonetheless they managed to shout a lot and handcuff the agents, while Dr. Kedar guided Rachel out of the way. She had gone a little deer-in-the-headlights.

“That was really dumb,” he informed her, but with a certain counterproductive admiration in his tone. “Let’s go to my office, I think you could use a drink.”

**

Inside the side-by-side observation rooms, Karl and Jeremy paced restlessly, caged animals still cooling their heels. Outside the rooms, Director Quarles paced restlessly, infuriated that two top agents were brawling like schoolboys and endangering the entire program with their uncontrolled behavior.

Delu leaned against a nearby desk. “Maybe you should stop—“ he began to suggest, but Quarles cut him off with a glare. “Okay.”

“Where’s Dr. Ward?” Jeremy wanted to know. “Is she okay?”

“Dr. Kedar took her away,” Karl told him, his tone suggesting ‘moron’ was the next word in the sentence. Jeremy did not want to hear from _him_ and growled, and Karl snapped back.

“Stop it!” Quarles ordered them. “I really don’t understand this behavior,” he finally admitted to Delu in frustration.

“He started it,” Karl pointed out, unasked.

Jeremy smacked his palm against the wall they shared. “I want to see Dr. Ward!” he demanded.

“Why would she want to see _you_?” Karl taunted, hitting his weak spot expertly. Quarles turned off the intercoms so they couldn’t hear each other, but this didn’t stop Jeremy from attempting to scale the wall and rip the ventilation duct cover off, like he was going to somehow _will_ himself to fit through the tiny opening just to get into the next room and strangle Karl. The air vents in the observation rooms were too small even for Jeremy, however.

“Green!” Quarles snapped anyway. He was _this close_ to using those air vents to tranq them both, just so he could have some quiet.

Then, of course, Rachel walked in.

Jeremy immediately thumped on the window, his voice muffled. Rachel was unimpressed and pointed downward, and he sat quickly on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees.

“Dr. Ward,” Quarles noted in an acid tone. “Back from receiving your Nobel Peace Prize? Have you solved the Middle East crisis yet?”

“One thing at a time, sir,” she shot back dryly, and he rolled his eyes while Delu tried very hard to conceal his smirk. “Did they say why they were fighting?”

“We hadn’t gotten around to asking yet,” Delu admitted.

Rachel indicated the intercom switches and Quarles gestured for her to go ahead, so she flipped them both on. “Are you okay, Dr. Ward?” Jeremy asked immediately, keeping his position on the floor. Karl snorted and Jeremy glared at the shared wall.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Rachel assured him, “but I’m very disappointed in both of you.” She gave them each a stern look and Jeremy seemed suitably abashed. Karl tried to pretend he didn’t care but he still turned away uncomfortably. “Now what’s this all about?”

“He shot Susan with an arrow,” Jeremy snapped, muscles tightly coiled like he was about to spring. He rocked back and forth with the effort of not doing so.

Rachel’s eyebrows shot up and she turned to Karl, who insisted, “It was an accident.” Rachel hadn’t heard precisely what had happened to Susan and she glanced at Quarles.

He hadn’t either, apparently. “Get me _every_ video from that archery range—“ he demanded of his subordinates.

“Karl wasn’t _on_ the archery range,” Jeremy tattled. “He was in the trees. Susan told me. You’re not supposed to fire from the trees unless you tell everyone.”

“There wasn’t anyone to tell when I started,” Karl maintained. “She was careless.”

“ _You_ were careless,” Jeremy ground out through clenched teeth. He was holding himself very tightly now.

“Well, I didn’t do it on purpose,” Karl repeated. He seemed firm on this point but that didn’t really make Jeremy feel better.

Rachel waited to see if they were done. “I’m sure Karl will apologize to Susan, now that she’s awake,” she suggested evenly. Karl did not seem enthusiastic about this idea but Rachel held his gaze until he turned away.

“Yes, he should apologize to Susan,” Jeremy agreed. “And have to go through basic archery training again.”

This was too much for Karl. “I don’t need—“ he started to snap, then realized the corner he’d been painted into and growled, smacking the shared wall.

“Well, apparently you do,” Quarles noted. “Archery training repeat for Lund,” he ordered an assistant. This would restrict the agent’s privileges in one of his favorite activities until he proved he could perform it responsibly.

“And Susan?” Rachel prompted Karl.

“I’ll apologize,” he conceded flatly, in the least apologetic tone possible.

“I should go with you, in case Susan gets scared,” Jeremy decided, and Rachel turned her pointed gaze on him. He tensed again, having just begun to relax.

“No, you won’t,” she countermanded. “You two are going to stay away from each other for a while. And, you can apologize to Karl for attacking him.”

Jeremy gave a snort of outrage; if Karl smirked, he’d be smirking right now. “I agree,” Karl said dryly.

“I’m not going to apologize to Karl,” Jeremy huffed. “I’m not sorry.” Karl’s expression was insufferably smug, now that _he_ was the reasonable one.

“You’ll apologize,” Rachel threatened him coolly, “or you’ll be sitting in that room long after Karl’s gone.”

Jeremy thought long and hard about this. Rachel realized such apologies were often empty—she doubted Karl was really sorry he’d shot Susan, only sorry he’d been found out—but she felt it was important the agents make them anyway. It showed they could obey orders again, which was very important after a breach in behavior like this. So the question was not, was Jeremy sorry he’d hit Karl. It was, was Jeremy ready to calm down and obey orders again?

He came to a decision and settled into a more relaxed position on the floor. “I’m sorry I attacked you, Karl.”

“I don’t think that sounded very sincere,” Karl judged innocently.

“I will be watching _your_ sincerity _very_ closely, Karl,” Rachel warned him, then flipped the intercoms off, isolating each agent.

“Well, this is a mess,” Quarles sighed. “You don’t think he shot Bates on purpose, do you?”

“We’re compiling the footage now,” Delu deferred.

“I don’t think so,” Rachel judged. “I don’t think he cared one way or another, and that’s bad; but I don’t think he was being malicious.”

“And then Green in the cafeteria,” Quarles went on, shaking his head. “That’s _totally_ outside the bounds of protocol.” He was not looking forward to potentially resetting one of his experienced agents.

“I agree,” Rachel told him, which surprised him a little; usually she was the first to defend the agents, especially Jeremy. “Though, I guess he was just trying to express his frustration and anger,” she added. “These guys don’t sit down and hug it out, you know.”

“I think Dr. Zhu tried hug therapy once,” Delu recalled. His tone implied it hadn’t lasted very long.

“They both need a nice, long session with Dr. Zhu, too,” Quarles decided punitively.

“Well, if it makes a difference, they weren’t really trying to hurt each other,” Rachel told him, and Quarles gave her a questioning look. “They’re really not that injured,” she pointed out, by way of evidence. “I’ve seen the footage of their fight skills in the field. This was nothing.”

“Well, you were in the middle of it,” Quarles couldn’t resist remarking, as though this made her observation more accurate.

Rachel chose to ignore the sarcasm. “Yeah, that’s another thing. I’m sure they wouldn’t have stopped to listen to me in the middle of a _real_ fight. This was like—two kids bickering in the back seat.”

“That would make you the mom who yells at them to stop,” Delu noted with some amusement.

Quarles rolled his eyes. “Your talent for understatement is legendary, Dr. Ward,” he commented.

Rachel didn’t know quite how to take either remark. “Well, I should probably patch them up now, they do have a _few_ injuries,” she said leadingly.

Quarles was getting tired of being surprised by this particular employee. “You want to go in there with them.” Of course she did.

Rachel shrugged as though it were no big deal. “They’re pretty calm now.” In fact both agents were leaning against their shared wall, tapping messages to each other in Morse code. Probably not apologies, but they weren’t riling each other up, either.

“Go ahead,” Quarles allowed, feeling slightly helpless before her. He couldn’t deny Dr. Ward had accomplished some very useful things for the program. But sometimes he liked it better _before_ she was hired, back when everyone treated the agents like robots. Things seemed simpler back then.


End file.
